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Annies Inc (NYSE:BNNY) investors should be aware of a decrease in support from the world’s most elite money managers in recent months.

If you’d ask most market participants, hedge funds are perceived as worthless, old financial vehicles of years past. While there are more than 8000 funds in operation today, we at Insider Monkey hone in on the crème de la crème of this group, around 450 funds. It is widely believed that this group oversees most of the hedge fund industry’s total asset base, and by keeping an eye on their top equity investments, we have brought to light a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outpaced the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outpaced the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points in 7 months (see the details here).

Equally as important, bullish insider trading sentiment is a second way to parse down the financial markets. There are many incentives for a bullish insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but just one, very obvious reason why they would buy. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if investors know what to do (learn more here).

With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a glance at the latest action encompassing Annies Inc (NYSE:BNNY).

In preparation for this year, a total of 10 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of -9% from the previous quarter. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists a few notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their stakes meaningfully.

Of the funds we track, Sigma Capital Management, managed by SAC Subsidiary, holds the biggest position in Annies Inc (NYSE:BNNY). Sigma Capital Management has a $18.4 million position in the stock, comprising 1% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors, with a $5.7 million position; less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining peers that hold long positions include Drew Cupps’s Cupps Capital Management, Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors and Mike Vranos’s Ellington.

Seeing as Annies Inc (NYSE:BNNY) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there is a sect of hedge funds that elected to cut their entire stakes in Q4. Intriguingly, David Keidan’s Buckingham Capital Management cut the largest position of all the hedgies we track, comprising about $16.1 million in stock., and John Murphy of Alydar Capital was right behind this move, as the fund cut about $1.3 million worth. These moves are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest fell by 1 funds in Q4.

Insider purchases made by high-level executives is particularly usable when the company we’re looking at has experienced transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, Annies Inc (NYSE:BNNY) has seen 1 unique insiders buying, and 6 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

Let’s check out hedge fund and insider activity in other stocks similar to Annies Inc (NYSE:BNNY). These stocks are Sanderson Farms, Inc. (NASDAQ:SAFM), Cal-Maine Foods Inc (NASDAQ:CALM), Central Garden & Pet Co (NASDAQ:CENT), Dole Food Company, Inc. (NYSE:DOLE), and ZHONGPIN INC. (NASDAQ:HOGS). This group of stocks are in the food – major diversified industry and their market caps are similar to BNNY’s market cap.